Every Cloud Has a Thinsulate Lining

This is how you purchase fabric online for a project (hypothetically speaking, let's say a coat):

Step 1: Search the Internet for the exact kind of fabric you want at the price you want.
Step 2: Broaden your range of possible fabrics.
Step 3: Broaden your range of acceptable prices.

Repeat steps 1-3 until you find an outer fabric and a lining fabric that you like.

Step 4: Carefully determine how much fabric you will need. Allow a little extra, because it will be a huge pain to get more if you run out.
Step 5: Order fabric (grimacing at exorbitant shipping cost optional).
Step 6: Receive email from supplier that they don't have enough of the outer fabric that you need, and can you make do with less? You cannot. Ask if you can backorder. You can't, and furthermore, once they run out of fabric, it is gone forever. Do you still want the lining? Of course not. Cancel your order.

Repeat steps 1-5.

Step 7: Track your fabric shipment obsessively. (optional)
Step 8: Pick up your package at the post office after weeks of waiting (at least, it feels that way). Try to restrain your surprise and dismay at the fact that you paid $12 shipping for a glorified plastic bag.
Step 9: Discover that the supplier's definition of "coat-weight" fabric is roughly equivalent to your definition of "airy shawl-weight."
Step 10: Order Thinsulate to put between the lining and the flimsy wool outer layer of your coat so you can wear it in temperatures below 60 degrees.
Step 11: This time actually grimace at the shipping costs because they are almost the same amount as what you're paying for the fabric itself.
Step 12: Remove "lower cost" from your shrinking list of benefits to creating your own coat versus just going to Macy's and buying one.

Interim Projects: Apron and Goodie Bags

My fabric is apparently taking the scenic route from California to Washington, because the last Fed-Ex update I have is from when it shipped from Sacramento on the 12th.

To keep myself busy in the meantime, in between all the Christmas shopping, pre-feast dieting, and decking of the halls, I've been puttering around the sewing room. First up was an apron made from scrap fabric we had around, done in the same pattern as an apron I made for my friend last winter.

Because I strive to be a domestic diva in all things possible.

It looks deceptively simple for all the work I put into it. The top has an interfaced facing, those straps had to be turned and pressed, and the ties in back and the whole flounce along the bottom (which is the whole reason why I picked this pattern) have narrow hems. I must have done a million yards of narrow hems by now, but they never get any quicker or more fun. On the upside, quilting cotton is pretty stable and easy to work with, so I had that going for me.

Once I finished that, it was on to the next project: goodie bags for an upcoming cookie exchange. I wanted to make drawstring bags that could hold 3-6 cookies each and could be reused, and they had to be simple, because I needed to make 14 of them. I haven't sewn things en masse since I was 8 and made blankets for every single one of my toy horses.

Toy horses are notoriously vulnerable to the icy winds of winter.

My original thought was getting some pretty festive organdy (a stiff, sheer fabric somewhat like chiffon) to use, but Jo-Ann's was surprisingly deficient in the holiday fabric department. Which was strange, because normally you can find holiday fabrics up the wazoo there (for Easter and Halloween, at least).

While their organdy selection was sadly lacking, I did find some cute homespun fabrics in green and red, and I finally picked one that has shiny red and green threads running through it.

The "pattern" I'm using is just a rectangle, 10-1/2" by 14", that will be folded in half to make a 9-1/2"x6" pouch. At least it was until I laid out my fabric and discovered that I wouldn't be able to fit my pattern piece on there enough times to get 14 pouches out of 1-2/3 yards of fabric. I shaved off half an inch so that the pattern's new dimensions were 10"x14", and that did it. By cutting conservatively, I was just able to get my 14 pieces out. 

Rectangles are the best.

After I cut out the pieces, I finished the top edge of the bag by pressing under 1/2", sewing close to the raw edge, and then zig-zag stitching over the raw edge to keep it from unraveling. It's not as elegant an edge as a narrow hem, but I couldn't be bothered to do that much pressing.

Step 2 was to sew up the sides to form the actual bag. That went quickly because after the first few, I decided to stop using pins and just hold the edges together while I sewed them up. LIKE A BOSS

If I was making just one of these for myself, I would have pressed the seams flat... but I wasn't, so I didn't.

Step 3 was to put in casing. Because I am lazy and also wanted to conserve fabric, I decided to sew on a wide ribbon as the drawstring casing, rather than pressing down more of the bag top and losing volume. The wide ribbon also adds a bit of decorative flair.

Again... no pins. Skillz.

After that, I just threaded in my thinner organdy ribbon, tied it off, and voila! 

The color is weird because my camera hates incandescent lights and the color red.

My original plan was to do a double-drawstring bag, but in the interest of finishing the project before midnight, I decided to just do a single drawstring and call it good. It cinches up nicely, and I added a little extra ribbon so that the bag can be fastened with a knot, if desired.

After putting together 14 of those suckers, I'm really glad that I went for a reasonably simple pattern. Sometimes my ambitions get the better of me, but this time I actually started a project and finished it quickly. Go me!

Real Talk: Losing Weight Is Hard To Do, or, Sometimes I Bite Off More Than I Can Chew

Preliminary note: Still haven't heard anything from Fashion Fabrics Online, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that no news is good news. In the meantime, please enjoy the following musings.


I'm on a diet.

This isn't the first time I've attempted to lose weight, but I'm hoping it will be the most successful. I scouted around the web for a while before settling on a fairly easy-to-follow program: exercise 6 days a week, cut out all refined sugars, and make sure every meal contains a good source of fibrous carbohydrates (fruits and veggies), protein (lean meats and eggs), and healthy fats (raw nuts, extra virgin olive oil, eggs, avocados, butter). Complex carbohydrates, found in potatoes, beans, grains, etc (again, as un-processed as possible) are allowed if eaten within an hour after the workout session.

I started on Monday (I know--I'm always enthusiastic at the outset) and so far I've been out on daily walks with my brother. I'm working in some interval training: after a good walking warm-up, I'll trade off jogging and walking every minute for about 12-15 minutes. I'm pretty out of shape, so I'm starting with this and I'm hoping to work up the jogging intervals over the next few weeks. The gravel road that I live down is very hilly, which keeps things interesting and is pretty good on my glutes.

My motivation stems from a desire to do something with myself--I can only spend so many days vegging out and playing Xbox before I start to get stir-crazy--and a nostalgia for the body I had before starting college.

I have never been a slender, willowy person, but in my freshman year of college I was a comfortable size 12 and on a good day, I could squeeze in to a size 10. I was, I think, more or less content with my body. The "freshmen 15" were inevitable: dining hall buffets, campus cafes, and stress certainly didn't help my eating habits. Although I paid for access to the school gym every quarter, working up the energy to go was difficult. I either had to get up early and go before class (and I am most definitely not a morning person) or work in a time in the afternoon, which I usually spent doing homework or socializing. I probably went a handful of times in the last four years.

By the time I got out at the end of this summer, I was an admitted size 14 (even my comfy Gap size 12 jeans were a squeeze) with a belly that is serious business. Looking back on pictures of my senior recital, in the dress I thought was great, is somewhat horrifying. How did I get so fat?


I guess it's easy to deny because I can't face a mirror without sucking it in. In the right clothes, I can still define the dip of my waist. But when I let it all hang out, so to speak, the grim reality sets in. I definitely need to lose weight.

I want to feel comfortable and sexy in my own skin again. I don't have any excuses any more: I have time and money to pick out and prepare meals that are healthy. I have nothing to do but exercise. I no longer have to depend on hourly caffeine infusions to get by every day. The closest Starbucks (or any fast food, for that matter) is a 20-minute drive away. I have all these jeans and skirts that I want to wear again, no muffin tops allowed. And I'm already thinking of warmer weather, of recitals I'm planning to play in, of summer vacations where I can wear shorts and tank tops and swim suits without shame.

So I'm dieting. It's hard. It requires, as Mad-Eye Moody would say, "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" I have to curb my cravings. I'm a serious snacker, and bread is one of my favorite things to eat in the whole world. No more bread. No more ice cream. Sometimes I think, "Just one scoop wouldn't hurt." And then I think, "Do you really want that ice cream more than you want to be skinny?" And the answer is no.

The nice thing is that the diet and the exercise depend on each other. If I want carbs, I have to earn them. So it motivates me to get out there and run for a while, because I know that when I get back, I can eat my baked potato and feel that I truly deserve it. It's like a reward.

The sugar is a little harder to kick, because I definitely have a sweet tooth, and sugar lurks in more things than you'd expect. Teriyaki sauce? Sugar. Lunch meats? Sugar. Dried nuts? Sugar. Stevia, a kind of herbal sweetener, is okay; but the Stevia-in-the-Raw that I have also includes dextrose, which is a form of--you guessed it--sugar. It's hard to get away from, but so far I'm doing alright. I'm drinking my morning coffee with just a splash of milk, no sugar, and I've been eating a ton of fruits and vegetables. Fortunately, fruits are A-okay.

But so far, it's working! The numbers on the scale are inching down every day. It's so gratifying to see some success. I suspect a lot of this is due to the no-sugar, few-carbs approach, but it feels good to get out and get my blood pumping again. At the very least, I'm starting to feel as though I'm accomplishing something, and that is as good a reward as any.

The Coatmaker Rides Again!

Well, after the last ordering fiasco, it took me a while to look around and decide what I wanted to do. I couldn't just lay aside this whole coat idea, because I just bought a new pair of boots for Christmas and I need something to wear with them.

Jo-Ann's continues to disappoint me with their complete lack of the boucle fabric I so desperately desire, and a bit of web scouring has convinced me that, unfortunately, Fashion Fabrics Online has the cheap fabric market cornered. So it was with some reluctance that I scanned their offerings to see if I could come up with a second-best choice to the lovely abstract plaid I'd picked out before.

I found another plaid, one which I'd actually considered before. It follows the same black/white idea of my previous boucle choice, but the pattern is a little bolder.

It's 100% wool and had the added bonus of costing only $10.75 a yard, so I've got my fingers crossed that this one goes through. I did purchase a little more fabric than I attempted to last time--5-1/4 yards versus the 4-7/8 that I technically need, so that I can match up the stripes, hopefully, when I'm cutting everything out.

For the lining, I was initially considering a light silver fabric, but I decided to go dark this time: a burgundy check by Ralph Lauren and, apparently, imported from France:

Ooh la la!

Hard to tell if it's reddish or purplish in that picture (with a name like "burgundy," you'd think reddish, but I guess that's one of those colors that is open to interpretation), but either one should go nicely with the black and white of the boucle. I also wanted a darker fabric in case if shows through the looser weave of the boucle. That's a problem I didn't have with the uber-thick melton coat I sewed last year, but I'll have to keep it in mind until I actually see the boucle in person. The price was pretty decent on this one--$3.95 a yard--so I'm hoping it turns out to be a nice sturdy lining. The skimpy polyester linings I've tried from Jo-Ann's just don't hold up to constant wear and tear.

Now that my order is all sent off, I just have to cross my fingers and hope they're able to get enough fabric. And in the meantime, I'll clear out the sewing room in anticipation.